Arapiles Community Theatre

Palais de Pixel

Palais de Pixel was started by Melissa Morris. Held in the Soldier’s Memorial Hall, with drinks and nibblies, it is not unusual to see people bringing couches down the street, and sleeping bags to cope with the halls inadequate heating.

This year’s program has been and is:

Palais de Pixel

Program 2013

March 11th, Local Hero. Bill Forsyth’s whimsical tale of sweet-natured corporate rapacity features standout performances by Burt Lancaster and Peter Riegert. Lancaster plays Texas billionaire Felix Happer, who would rather gaze at the stars than worry about his multi-national oil company. Happer dispatches Mac MacIntyre (Peter Riegert) and Danny Oldsen (Peter Capaldi) to the small Scottish fishing village of Ferness to negotiate buying the entire town so Happer can drill for oil in the North Sea. Music, Mark Knopfler.

April 8th, Turtles can Fly. Set in a village on the border between Iran and Turkey, just as the world’s news networks announce the US led invasion of Iraq. The villagers desperately seek a satellite dish antenna to keep informed of the impending attack. No adult is up to the job, so it falls to a 13-year-old boy called “Satellite” and his underage army to find the treasured antenna. There are plenty of laughs from these delightfully scrappy kids as they barter with American soldiers for the best price on old landmines. Arriving suddenly from a neighbouring village, is a clairvoyant boy called Henkov. The war is getting closer and closer and Henkov has a strong foreboding about what is going to happen.May 13th, Love Serenade. In this quirky Australian comedy two bored sisters Dimity and Vicki-Ann live in the small country town of Sunray (alias Robinvale). Their new neighbour, a brooding self-centred type, formerly star D.J. of a drive-time programme on Brisbane radio, threatens to turn the sisters’ world upside down. Dimity and Vicki-Ann find themselves in competition for his affections as each develops a severe crush on the aging Lothario with a predilection for 70’s music and young women. Awards, Cannes International Film Festival 1996.

June 10th, McCabe and Mrs Miller. An often blackly humorous modernist western, non-heroic and edgily understated, in which an itinerant gambler turned brothel owner and a prostitute turned Madame strike up a precarious relationship in a bizarre mining town. The scope for frontier individualism is threatened by the encroachment of companies owned by shareholders back east. Music by Leonard Cohen.

July 8th, Nowhere in Africa. A family on the run for their lives finds themselves in a beautiful but utterly unfamiliar world in this drama based on the autobiographical novel by Stefanie Zweig. Walter Redlich (Merab Ninidze) is a successful Jewish lawyer living in Germany during the rise of the Third Reich. Aware of the increasing dangers of remaining in Germany, Walter seeks exile on a farm in Kenya. Winner of several international festival awards including 5 German Film Awards (inc Best film) and Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

August 12th, Road to Nhill Follows the events of a lazy summer’s afternoon in the town of Pyramid Hill in central Victoria. Once day, a car-load of lady bowlers flips over on the way home from a tournament at Quambatook. Confusion escalates as word about the accident spreads around the town, No-one knows for certain who was in the car, how bad the accident is, or even where it is. Is it on the old Nhill Road, or is it on the road that actually goes to Nhill? Husbands go in all directions in search of their wives; helpful passers-by take the women involved in the accident in other directions; the ambulance gets lost; and the local policeman misses the accident altogether.

September 9th, 84 Charing Cross Road. The film opens in 1949 as an American woman, Helene Hanff, is making her first trip to London. She is a collector of rare books and has carried on a twenty year correspondence with an antiquarian bookseller in London, his colleagues and family. Structured in flashbacks around the letters which form the basis of Hanff’s memoirs, the film is touchingly sentimental, humorously observant, and obviously literary in conception. The austerity of postwar London is contrasted with the relative affluence of New York. There is considerable strength in the performances of Bancroft as the headstrong bibliophile, Hopkins as the bookseller, a shy and staid family man, and Judi Dench as his wife.October 14th, Four Minutes. A most unusual story told with equally unusual conviction. Traude Kruger has been giving piano lessons in a women’s prison for decades. She meets Jenny, a reserved young woman convicted of murder who was once considered a child musical prodigy. Her attempt to guide her pupil to victory in a music competition leads to a difficult, contradictory relationship between the two women which fascinates to the very last second

November 11th, Children of the Revolution. This outrageous comedy won outstanding critical acclaim for its wild humour and award-winning cast of stars! After a mad, passionate fling on a whirlwind trip to Moscow, party girl Joan Fraser (Judy Davis) returns home pregnant. And when little Joe is born, everyone wonders who “Daddy” is! Soon, the ball starts rolling on a hilarious sequence of events that includes a clueless husband (Geoffrey Rush), a lovesick double agent (Sam Neil) and even Joseph Stalin himself (Murray Abraham)! Get ready for nonstop laughs in the madcap, all-star comedy that takes a wild look at … the ultimate party animals!